Stitches
by kilroyactual117
Summary: War has always been full of uncertainties. God's own recipe for disaster. Sgt Daniel Turner thought about this as he put on his armor, the one line of defense he had between himself and death, and how futile it was that he wore it, but still he wore it, because he still held onto hope that it might help him keep a silent promise he had made to Lt Emily Miller long ago.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: hey guys. So this story will be short, probably four chapters in length. As you can probably tell, the story was partially inspired by the song Stitches. that may not make any sense at first, but bear with me, the song and the cover art will make sense soon.**

 **anyway, enjoy.**

* * *

 **"Gotta feeling that I'm going under, but I know that I'll make it out alive."**

* * *

War has always been full of uncertainties.

A mixture of the best and most destructive weapons a civilization could create deployed to a contained area, that was all it ever has been. God's own recipe for disaster.

Sergeant Daniel Turner thought about this as he put on his armor, the one line of defense he had between himself and the worst humanity could create, and how futile it was that he wore it. When it came down to it, armor had been outmoded in warfare, and it had been that way for nearly five hundred years. If the enemy really wanted him dead bad enough, he would end up that way, one way or the other, armor or not.

But still he wore it, because he still held onto hope that it might keep him alive long enough to keep a promise to himself he had made a long time ago, although the promise was more to Lieutenant Emily Miller than anyone else.

He stood now, looking on at her nervously, and wondering why he hadn't kept that promise a year ago.

Of course he knew why he hadn't kept it. Just because the UNSC Airforce combat surgeon had stolen his heart long ago didn't mean she was immune to death, and just because she had taken the smart route through life while he had charged head long into the fray wouldn't make it hurt any less if he saw her killed.

When he had met her she had just commissioned as an officer, fresh out of ROTC and deployed to an unfamiliar planet, a brilliant young woman who had a lot to learn. He had enlisted in the Army in high school, coming from a military family it was all but expected of him. Although he had always respected the UNSC, he couldn't help but wonder if he would have chosen another job had his family ever made it seem like a possibility.

When he met her he had just made Corporal. He had been sent to the same godforsaken world where the UNSC had seen fit to take on an insurrectionist insurgency.

He had forged an unlikely friendship with her kindled over many long, but her kind nature, her energetic personality that the war hadn't managed to crush, her radiant smile, and her brilliance all made him wish to be much more than friends with her. He wasn't quite sure when he had fallen in love with her, when he had first met her or some time later, but it really didn't matter. He was in love with her now, and love had no place in a conflict like this one.

"The radiation war" as it was being called, was fought over a desolate, desert world, with little water to speak of, but it was rich in titanium, plutonium, and uranium, the three things the UNSC desperately needed to keep its war machine running, so when the URF had announced a hostile takeover the UNSC had responded in force, deploying all that was left of their dwindling Army to push them back and engage them in a hand-and-hand-and-tooth-and-nail conflict for the planet.

So here he stood, a year later, still just as hopelessly in love, and no closer to wining this war. Her encouragement and kind smiles were just about the only thing holding his almost nonexistent morale together, and even though he knew he shouldn't allow himself to indulge his need to see her, he still did before every mission, and this one would be no different.

Lt. Emily Miller spent most of her time in the field hospital, tending to wounded that had been injured, usually by IED blasts, surprise rocket attacks, or plasma burns from the occasional Covenant weapon, and was nearly always swamped in bloody work, but still she made time for him. Usually it was only two or three minutes of conversation right before a mission, but the gesture meant more to him than she could ever have imagined.

He found her near the side of her trauma tent, and after staring at her for five minutes, he finally built up the courage to run over to her.

When she looked up at him, her normally brilliant, green eyes looked glazed and dead as she stared directly ahead of her. She looked like hell, but when she saw him jogging towards her, helmet tucked under his arm, a small amount of life leaked back into her eyes, and the tiniest of smiles played across her lips.

Hope shot through him and a smile crossed his face as he saw her happiness to see him. It was far from what he felt for her, but it was something, and it gave him a small amount of hope that maybe when this was all over she would be able to find a small place in her heart for him.

She shakily got to her feet, blinking hard and rubbing her eyes. He saluted her snappily, the customary greeting for someone of her rank, but she simply laughed and shook her head, returning the salute halfheartedly.

"Hey Daniel," she said, still chuckling slightly.

"Ma'am," he responded simply, but with a bit of enthusiasm in his tone.

He knew she didn't like him saluting her or calling her ma'am, they were friends after all, but UNSC policy meant that even their close friendship could be construed as fraternization if not conducted properly, putting yet another barrier between them. They knew why the rules existed, but after so long on deployment the both of them had come to care about following them less and less.

"Going outside the wire again?" She asked, her smile souring.

In a way, the fact that she cared for his safety made him feel warm inside. The pain and the worry in her eyes made him far from happy, but the fact that someone cared wether or not he came back from his next trip outside the compound meant the world to him.

"Yeah," he responded simply, "the URF has been laying IEDs along a highway near a civilian settlement, we're gonna escort some EOD guys out there to diffuse them."

Emily visibly shivered at the though of an IED. Improvised explosive devices had been a staple of guerrilla warfare since the twenty first century, used as hit and run weapons to harass and injure.

She saw the full force of what one could do on a daily basis.

She had seen the mangled forms of soldiers coming back from the field missing everything from skin to arms and legs. Being a combat surgeon wasn't what someone would usually think of as the bloodiest job in the UNSC, but she and Daniel both knew otherwise.

"Hey, Daniel," she said, her voice trembling a little bit, "come back okay, please, and don't screw around with those bombs. I don't want to lose you too."

He frowned at the immense pain in her eyes. He knew she was thinking about him, dead on the side of the road, his vehicle mangled by an explosion. He had had the same sort of waking nightmares many times before, the empty feeling he knew he would feel if he lost her racing through his mind like a rocket propelled grenade.

He placed a caring hand on her shoulder, hoping to reassure her slightly. In a way, he was glad she would miss him. Maybe she felt something for him after all, but now was neither the time nor the place for that kind of thought.

"I'll be fine," he said confidently, "I promise."

She smiled at his comment, although Daniel could tell it was forced, the pain in her eyes and the way she nervously ran her hand through her matted auburn hair gave that away loud and clear. He wished he could promise her with certainty that nothing would happen to him, but there were no promises in war.

"You better be," she said, a certain kindness about her stern tone, "I'd have to charge extra to patch you up."

He relaxed and let a full on smile break across his face. This beautiful, lovingly sarcastic, and brilliant woman was the woman he had fallen in love with. He just had to survive to the end of this deployment and maybe, just maybe, he could do something about that.

So he saluted her once more, and prepared his himself to go somewhere few seemed to be coming back from any more.

"Goodbye Emily," he said, indulging her wish for him to call her by name.

She returned the salute, and the haunted expression returned to her face immediately.

"Be safe," she said simply.

Although her tone didn't falter for a second, as those words left her mouth he could have sworn he saw a tear form in her pain racked eyes, but she turned away from him to quickly for him to see anything but a small glimmer of water.

He turned to leave. If he could have spun her around and embraced her, dried her tears and reassured her he would be fine, he would have, but this wasn't the time.

He turned his back and headed head-long into the conflict, just as he had his whole life. This was the path he had chosen. Maybe when he was done with it he could allow himself to be in love with her.

* * *

As Emily watched Daniel walk away from her yet again, she couldn't help but worry for him.

She fought off the tears that came at the thought of what he was getting himself into. It wasn't the first time she had thought about how she would feel if he became the next soldier to lay on her operating table, cut wide open and bleeding profusely onto the operating table as she tried to extract as much shrapnel from him as she could, before eventually it was too much, and he flatlined.

The mere thought of his death was something that sickened her. He was a good man, he was her friend, and though she couldn't admit it, she was in love with him.

She knew the reasons why she couldn't, and she knew getting this attached to someone who fought for a living was a recipe for heartbreak, but she had stopped trying to deny how she had felt long ago.

How on earth would she deal with the regret of not telling him how she felt if he did wind up dead?

* * *

 **"And oh, without your kisses, I'll be needing stitches."**


	2. Chapter 2

**"Needle and a thread, gotta get you outta my head, needle and a thread, gonna wind up dead."**

* * *

Fatigue and long hours, that was what a UNSC vehicle operator's job entailed most of the time. Although their official job description was to operate light vehicles and move personnel around the battlefield, more often than not there was less driving than there was sitting and waiting in long lines, watching as EOD teams cleared roadside bombs and tanks shelled fortifications.

Today was no different than any other for Daniel. His eyes were bloodshot, straining to stay focussed on the road as he sat in the pitch dark of night, the blackout lights in his warthog APC casting a dim, red glow over his dashboard.

His mind was dangerously occupied with thoughts Emily. He couldn't keep the glow of her smile out of his head, and it was distracting him. He didn't need to be preoccupied thinking about her if a rocket came streaking towards the convoy and he needed to hit the gas and get out of there in a hurry, or if the locals that were currently blocking the convoy began to turn on the dismounted soldiers in front of the convoy that were trying to clear them off the road.

The locals weren't happy about the URF being there, but they also weren't happy about the UNSC driving a column of armored vehicles down the middle of their highway.

Sometimes he wondered which side they were on. They seemed to support the UNSC when asked about it, but when push came to shove and they needed to clear out URF positions they always seemed to come out of the woodwork to stop them.

He took a deep breath and pushed the locals and Emily from his mind, fixing his eyes back on the road ahead of him as he tried to stay focused while his APC sat parked.

Ten minutes later a group of MPs showed up with less than lethal ammo and threatened to open fire if they didn't clear the road. It wasn't an endearing tactic, but the longer they sat parked in the middle of the road the more likely it was they would be hit by an ambush.

Just when he thought the convoy was beginning to move again, the lead squad's point man stopped and began to survey the area after their explosives detector picked up something.

Daniel's radio kept him awake even though his mind was now quiet. Chatter bounced back and forth between the squad about what to do, but he knew ultimately the decision would be left up to him.

"It'll take a while to do a search. What do you think Sarge?" Asked one of the soldiers, inquiring as to wether they should scan for the bomb.

Some part of Daniel just wanted to say fuck it and drive right on through. He was too damn tired to stay out in the field much longer, but he heard Emily's voice echo like a hollow ring in his head reminding him to stay safe, and he remembered the fear he had seen in her eyes when she had thought of an IED, and what it could do to a person.

He was exhausted, but so was everyone else here, and he wasn't about to risk their lives because of his own impatience.

"Better safe than sorry," he replied.

The soldier, now standing in his headlights, gave a thumbs up and got to the side of the road, positioning her squad near the edge of a water filled embankment so they could cover the road while the EOD team worked. The occupants of Daniel's vehicle, minus himself, exited as well, taking up similar positions to help.

Daniel threw the APC in reverse and made way for the column's mammoth elephant heavy recovery vehicle to pass him. The elephant belonged to a Navy EOD team, and contained a single, large suit of power armor used for defusing bombs.

The elephant pulled off the road and began unloading the suit with a heavy crane. It was a behemoth monstrosity designed to contain a single soldier, somewhat like spartan armor, but at least three times as big and four times more armored. Massive hydraulic rams and servos protruded from every joint, and on the chest plate was painted 'if you see me running try to keep up.'

When the suit was unloaded and the operator had taken control, he began to slowly lumber towards the site of the suspected bomb, using a scanner to look for objects under the road.

He didn't get very far before he froze in place.

"Found something," the operator said over the radio, "looks like a device of some kind. Checking it out."

Daniel fought to keep awake as the operator locked out the suit's legs and bent over at the waist, using the suit's robotic arms to begin to dig up the bomb. Daniel couldn't see clearly what he was getting at, but by the way he was digging he knew he had found something.

"Hold on," said the operator after a minute, lifting something out of the hole.

The operator cleared away some more dirt and revealed a brick of plastic explosive, then pulled a thick electrical line out of the ground which ran to several other spots on the road, no doubt to other mines, more than a few of which were directly underneath Daniel's APC.

"Shit!" Cursed the operator, "the whole place is mined. Everyone off the road."

Daniel's mind slowed down, and his vision blurred as he heard the operator's command.

He kicked the APC into gear in what seemed like slow motion, and slammed his foot onto the gas pedal, but he wasn't nearly fast enough.

The first of the mines detonated under the EOD suit in front of him. Although the suit was supposed to protect its operator from blasts, it wasn't design to take a direct hit like that. He was thrown onto his back, his suit bleeding hydraulic fluid into the air and all over the road.

The second blast shredded the suit and its operator.

The third mine detonated in the middle of the dismounted soldiers, throwing some of them off their feet and into the water on either side of the road and turning others into a cloud of mist and dust with a loud bang and an explosion of dust and shrapnel.

Then, in a flash of dirt and fire, another explosion ripped the ground open under his APC, sending it flying into the air.

His stomach shot into his throat, his helmeted head slammed into the ceiling of the vehicle, and his ears popped from the pressure and the noise.

For a moment he felt weightless, his ears ringing as the vehicle floated in the air, and then his vision exploded into color as it impacted the ground, sending his head swimming and throwing him into vertigo.

His ears were ringing and his head was pounding. For a moment, he wondered if he was alive or dead.

He sat there for a moment, in pain and completely unable to move as he sat strapped into the driver's seat of his overturned warthog.

He was vaguely aware that the APC must have landed in the water, as the cabin was slowly but surely began filling with water, but he honestly felt no urge to fight to escape.

The pain as too great, his head was pounding too hard. He touched his hand to his chest and felt blood. Surely he wold bleed out long before he drown.

Death.

The thought of it frightened him for sure. The thought of not being able to continue on was awful, but only lasted for a moment before it overwhelmed him with regret.

His men were out there fighting, and dying at the hands of innies. He couldn't give up and abandon them here. So many of them had died. He wouldn't let harm come to another one of them.

Then, like cold water, Emily bled into his mind once again.

As much as he didn't want to fight and didn't want to aggravate his physical pain any further, the pain that came from the regret he felt was greater than any wound he could have suffered. It was the regret of never telling Emily he loved her. He had felt this way about her for so long, now he would never get the chance to tell her that he had, and his last thoughts would be of what could have been had he told her.

 _No._

He was not going to die this way. He was not going to have these be his last thoughts.

He knew that he loved her, and he had to know if she felt the same way, and if he was going to let this day cause him to regret losing her and his men, he would be damned.

Before he could think about her, however, he needed to get his men out of here. Duty before all, that was what he had signed on for. Anything else was secondary to getting himself and his men out alive.

He used all the will he had left to move his arms and reach for his combat knife to cut himself out of his harness. As his head cleared he began to notice the dull thuds of gun fire and the sound of rushing water as the ringing in his ears began to subside, spurring him on to move quicker.

He pulled his combat knife from its sheath on his leg, causing a lance of pain to shoot through him.

He cried out and bit down hard on his helmet's chin strap, ignoring the pain and cutting himself from his harness, causing himself to fall onto the driver's side window of the hog.

A large splinter of glass from the broken window jabbed through his leg, and freezing cold water flooded the wound and soaked his uniform, weighing him down.

He tore off his helmet and hit the quick release latch on his armor, letting it fall from him as he grabbed onto anything he could to try and stand up, the water now filling over half the hog's cabin.

He forced himself to stand, in spite of the pain. He was not going to die here.

He was going to see Emily again or die trying.

He forced the passenger side door open and hoisted himself out.

His arms, his legs, his chest, and his head all screamed in pain. His lungs were on fire and it felt like someone was pounding on the inside of his skull with a hammer, but he still gathered the strength to push himself from the hog.

He fell out of the door of the hog and into the water, clawing at its surface until his fingers felt the dusty sand of the shore.

What had previously been a dull thud of gunfire now permeated the air around him. The sound of infantry firing their assault rifles and armored vehicles sending high velocity shells across the road at an enemy he couldn't see was absolutely deafening. Clearly this had been a carefully planned ambush, and whoever was shooting at them now had come to finish them off.

He managed to pull himself half way onto the beach before he could no longer continue, his vision blurry from the pain and his hands shaking from adrenaline, which was all he had left to go on.

He heard a sharp scream of pain come from his left, and he looked over to see one of his men laying on the side of the embankment. It was one of the newer members of his unit, Private Hackett. He was screaming wildly and thrashing as he pressed the side of a heated combat knife to the stubs of his lower legs, which he had lost in the IED blast, and cauterized the flesh to stop the bleeding.

Daniel forced himself to claw his way over to him, and when the man had finished cauterizing his legs he had reached him.

Hackett threw his head back in pain and screamed one last time in agony before Daniel Daniel reached up and pulled off his helmet, looking him in the eyes with a pained expression.

"Hackett," yelled Daniel over the gunfire.

Hackett looked at him with glazed eyes and grunted, grinding his teeth together.

"Dammit sarge," he cursed loudly, his eyes shut tight in pain, "I'm fine. Get out of here."

He seemed liked he was ready to continue, but another wave of pain hit him and he screamed out loud, tears streaming form his eyes from the sheer pain.

"No," yelled Daniel, more to himself than to Hackett.

No one else would die if he could help it.

Daniel grabbed the drag handle of Hackett's vest and drug him towards the road, digging his heals into the sand to get traction.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw some survivors from the convoy taking cover behind the elephant on the other side of the road, which also had sustained heavy damage in spite of it's massive armor plating. One of its tracks had been blown apart in the blast making moving it impossible, a pity given the fact that it was their best chance of escape.

He waved to the entrenched soldiers, trying to get their attention, but one of the more trigger happy ones fired at his movement and sent a round straight through his tricep, causing him to scream in pain and his vision to explode into color once again.

He writhed in agony for a moment longer before regaining his focus. He pushed Hackett down to the side of the embankment to protect him before beginning to pull himself closer towards the soldiers, using his good arm to drag himself onto the road.

The same soldier spotted him once again and raised his weapon, believing him to be an enemy combatant. Daniel winced, ready for the soldier's round to find it's mark, but before he could fire a woman grabbed the barrel of his weapon and stopped him.

She made a sweeping gesture towards him and pulled a stretcher and biofoam from her rucksack, before running over to him with three other soldiers in tow.

The four ran across the bomb blasted road, firing their weapons wildly at the enemy as they themselves took fire from all around them, with one of them taking a round straight to the center of his chest plate, which stopped the round dead, and continuing to move regardless.

When they reached him they dropped their weapons and knelt down next to him, looking him in the eye and asking him questions he couldn't understand for the life of him.

All he heard and saw was background noise and someone looking at him, talking with no sound coming out.

He blinked hard, letting them know he was alive, and yelped in pain as one of them began to apply biofoam to his wounds and loaded him onto the stretcher, carrying him back across the road as rounds rained down around them. He glanced to the other pair of soldiers who were carrying Hackett, and watched as rounds ripped through the air around them. One of them took one to the leg and he stumbled, dropping Hackett and tripping the other soldier.

The three of them barely managed to tumble to the safety of the wreckage of the destroyed EOD suit, with Hackett screaming in pain once again.

One of the soldiers on the elephant made a move for it's mounted weapon and used it to provide them with enough cover to narrowly make it back across the road.

The two soldiers that were carrying him brought him into the elephant and began to work on him, patching up his wounds as best they could. He fought to stay conscious, but the stinging pain of the biofoam being sprayed on his wounds was too much, and he knew his body was about to shut down soon to protect itself.

As his vision began to blacken at the edges, his last thought was of Emily, and how he wasn't going to let his own fear or anything else get in the way of telling her what he had to.

* * *

 **"And now that I'm without your kisses, I'll be needing stitches."**


	3. Chapter 3

**"your words cut deeper than a knife. Now I need someone to breath me back to life."**

* * *

Lieutenant Emily Miller had seen some shit in her life.

She had treated every injury imaginable, severed arteries, broken bones, gunshot wounds, plasma burns, you name it.

Even though she had seen the worst that could be done to people, somehow she knew that all of that wouldn't hold a candle to what she was about to see.

She road in the back of a troop transport warthog across the base and to the airfield, dreading what she would find there for the entire ride.

She knew logically that it was Daniel being airlifted in after his convoy had been hit, but her mind simply could not accept the fact that he of all people had been injured. By all accounts, he had a slim chance of surviving.

He couldn't be injured. She had allowed herself to be attached to him and if he died she wasn't sure what she would do.

She had already watched so many nameless, faceless soldiers die on an operating table, she didn't want him to be next.

However, when the troop bay door of his pelican opened and he was rushed out on a stretcher, his BDU soaked in blood and his body covered in wounds that had been hastily filled with biofoam, the realization that this was her friend laying in front of her hit her like a freight train.

She wanted to stop, give into her nausea and cry out, but she couldn't. Daniel needed her now.

She had been a fool never to tell him how she truly felt about him, and if he died before she could she wasn't sure what she was going to do.

She helped load his stretcher into the back of the hog and sat next to him, monitoring his vitals as they rushed him to an operating room.

She fought back the urge to cry as she pushed his gurney through the door and into the sterile, white operating room, immediately beginning to work in him.

They took an image of his entire body with a portable MRI and immediately identified the problems.

He had a concussion and was internally bleeding, a round had torn through his left forearm, nearly severing an artery, shrapnel had impaled his midsection, and a piece of glass was lodged in his leg, dangerously close to his femoral artery.

If they moved it wrong, it would cut the artery, and probably kill him.

There was no room for error. She pulled on a surgical mask and gloves before grabbed tweezer, a scalpel, a small, plastic, clamp meant to hold severed arteries shut just in case.

She began to remove biofoam from his wounds before allowing another surgeon to begin to stitch them up.

Biofoam was only ever a temporary thing. Once it degraded or filled with too much blood it would begin to break down, and if the wound hadn't been treated or healed by then it would be back to square one.

When she was finished, she moved her attention to his leg, where the pice of glass sat near his artery.

She made incisions around the piece of glass to make it easier to remove. It was thick, ballistic glass, so at very least she didn't have to worry about it shattering inside his leg, just all of the dangerous things it could cut.

She carefully grabbed it with the tweezers and began to pull it free of the wound, pulling it almost all the way through his leg before her hand slipped, moving the glass ever so slightly to the side and nicking his artery, causing a squirt of blood to gush from his leg.

The spray of blood covered her BDU's in thick, red blood.

She wanted to throw up, and she wanted to cry, but she couldn't. She was on autopilot. If she didn't act now, he would die.

She pulled the glass free the rest of the way and had an orderly apply pressure on his leg while she retrieved the clamps from their sterile container and placed them above and below the artery.

The pressure stopped the flow of blood enough for her to grab a tissue patch and fuze it onto the artery with a handheld laser.

She pulled out the clamps, sewed up the wound, and started a blood transfusion the second she could. He had already lost a lot of blood, and most of it had gushed onto her, tinting her BDUs bright red.

It was all becoming too much.

One of the surgeons picked up a drill off a nearby table and consulted his tacpad for the best place to preform a craniotomy and alleviate the internal bleeding from his concussion.

She couldn't watch. She could almost feel the Daniel's pain radiating through her. For the first time in her entire UNSC medical career she was sure she was going to vomit.

She tried to cover her face with her hands so no one would see the anguish in he features, and ended up spattering her own face in his blood.

It was all over her. It ran into her eyes, through her hair, down the sleeves of her shirt, under her BDU blouse, there was no escape from it.

She began to hyperventilate. The thought of how much of Daniel was on her made it hard to breath, hard to think, even hard to move. Before today she had always been able to dehumanize her patients and make them seem like strangers, or empty bodies even, but this wasn't a stranger, and imagining that it was was impossible.

One of the orderlies noticed her breaking down and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"It's ok. I think the rest of us can take it from here," he said.

She wasn't even coherent enough to recognize who it was that was talking to her, despite how long she had been working with everyone in this room, but she headed their advice none the less and left, slumping against a wall outside the operating room.

The moment she hit the floor she tore off her gloves and surgical mask, and burst into tears.

She had seen so many people bleed to death over the years, and it seemed for every one she saved ten more would die. Even though she knew he wasn't the worst case she had ever had, the though of how bad of shape he was in still sickened her.

If she could, she would have tried to block him out of her mind and tell herself she didn't love him, she never had, but it didn't work, not in the slightest.

He had to survive, it was as simple as that.

She didn't move, not even to change BDUs or to clean the blood from her face and hands.

She simply let the tears run down her face through frequent sobs. It was all she could do until she knew for sure if he had survived.

* * *

 **"And now that I'm without your kisses, I'll be needing stitches."**


	4. Chapter 4

**"tripping over my self, aching, begging you to come help."**

* * *

When Daniel woke every part of him hurt.

It started with a dull, distant ache in his bones, but as his eyes opened they began to burn from the bright light of the room.

His mouth tasted like metal, his leg was on fire, and his abdomen felt like it had knives impaled into it from every side.

He sucked in a breath and groaned in pain. Even breathing hurt.

He couldn't open his eyes to see where he was, and slowly panic set in.

His mind instantly went to the worst case scenario. Had he been captured? Was the rest of his convoy dead?

He had already lost his squad before his own eyes. He wasn't sure what he would do if no one had made it out but him. He had failed in every sense of the word.

Maybe he'd just let his captors have there way with him. His men were dead, he would never be reunited with Emily, what difference did it make to him if he was picked apart piece by piece by some innie bastard if he was never going to see anyone he cared about again?

As his vision cleared a large UNSC logo, printed onto fabric came into view above him. The smell of blood and disinfectant tinged the air around him, and the sound of a heart rate monitor broke the silence around him. This was a trauma tent. He had made it out, and that meant others had as well.

"Daniel?" He heard someone call to him.

Even though he could barely hear anything above the ringing in his ears, he recognized the voice that spoke to him instantly, and he would have recognized it anywhere else.

Emily.

His eyes snapped open. He ignored the pain of the light as lances of it pierced his vision to find her.

He had to see her radiant smile and her kind eyes. He needed to know she was by his side so he could tell her what he had wanted to for so long.

What he found when his eyes opened, however, was not the same Emily he had left behind.

Her face was smeared with blood that had been hastily wiped away, leaving streaks of it near her hair line and jaw. Her BDUs were soaked in blood as well, all tinted a bright red. Her eyes were gazing at him hopefully, but they were racked with emotional pain, the kind that makes you want to cry out for no other reason than to feel something else besides it.

Tears began to stream down her face, cutting small rivers through it and pooling at the collar of her BDU. Without a second of hesitation she wrapped her arms tightly around him and buried her head securely into the space between his neck and his shoulder.

His heart leapt into his chest as he felt her touch while his aching body screamed in protest, but he managed to keep his reaction down to a slight wince.

Emily certainly didn't look like she was in any condition to see him do much more.

"You're alive. You're awake," she said, her voice muffled by the skin of his neck.

She sounded elated, and the death grip she had on him confirmed his suspicions.

In a way he was happy to get this reaction out of her. It made so many of his feelings for her seem so much more real, but at the same time he never wanted to have put someone through this kind of pain. Quickly his thoughts changed from happiness to guilt.

His mind wandered to his unit as he began to think of all the pain that had been suffered today. He glanced around the room to see if anyone else was here, and saw nothing but empty beds.

They had been only seconds from being overrun when they had pulled him off the road, had any of them made it out alive? He wouldn't be able to live with himself if they had all died while he laid unconscious on the road doing nothing.

"Emily," he said softly, "who else made it out?"

She paused her sobs for a moment before speaking shakily.

"Four dead in your squad, nineteen dead in the company," she said before choking up.

She didn't look like she was ready to talk abut the number of broken bodies she had seen. Between the dead and the wounded she had probably seen more tonight than he had in his career.

But while she choked up, the shock and reality of the situation settled in for Daniel. Most of those men he didn't know, but the four that he did had been his close friends. He didn't even know who was dead and who was alive. Any one of his men could have died in that explosion.

Guilt washed over him like freezing cold water, and he let go of Emily. How could he take comfort in her while so many of his men lay dead in the sand? He should have been out there with them, fighting and dying not laying around on his ass.

"Daniel?" She asked when he let go.

He didn't respond, and stared at the ceiling for a moment longer.

"Four dead," he said angrily, "God dammit."

Four men would never get to see their families again because of his decision, four good men. How could he live with that on his conscience?

"Daniel!" Scolded Emily, her voice suddenly firm and commanding.

Daniel shook his head and continued to stare at the ceiling. Why had he been lucky enough to be in a vehicle for the explosion? Any one of those men deserved his place infinitely more than he did.

"It should have been me," he whispered.

Emily went wide eyed as the though of him laying dead before her crossed his mind once again. Her eyes became glassy as she wrapped her arms forcefully around him once again.

"No," she said insistently, "no, please no. Don't think that."

Daniel almost pushed her away out of guilt, but the pain that rested in her eyes woke him up to the kind of hell Emily was going through. She had seen those men and many others die as well. Some of them had probably died right here on her operating table where she was expected to do the impossible and save them. She had worried about him dying for most of the last year, and he had been close to dying an hour ago.

This wasn't just about him. She had seen every bit as much blood as a result of this as he had, and need every bit as much comfort as he did, and she didn't deserve to be left cold and alone because of it.

"I'm so sorry," he tried to say, but she wouldn't hear it.

She simply buried her head deeper into his neck and sobbed.

"When I saw you I, I, I thought, I knew, oh god there was so much blood," she rambled against him, her tears choking her words and soaking through the fabric of the cot he was laying on, "please, don't go. I can't see you like that again. Let me help you."

His instinct to fight her still raged, but he conceded and wrapped his arms around her. Maybe if he held her close enough he could forget all of that for a moment.

Emily continued to hold him lovingly in place the whole time. He couldn't imagine what she was going through.

He could only guess that the blood that soaked her uniform now had come from him, and that she had been among the doctors that had operated on him. If he had had to do such a thing to her he wasn't sure he would have been able to keep from breaking down crying.

He slowly and gently brought a hand up to the back of her head, letting it rest against her neck and her auburn hair. He ignored the discomfort it caused him and began to rub gently against her neck and attempted to quiet her as best he could.

He didn't want to see her in this pained state any longer.

"Hey, it's ok Emily. I'm fine," he said reassuringly, "you did good."

Slowly but surely she began to calm down and her breathing began to slow. She released him from her grasp and all but fell backwards into the chair she had been sitting in, letting her hand slide to his and her head slump forward onto the side of his bed.

His heart rate stayed elevated as she squeezed his hand. He could only hope she meant the gesture as something more than friendly, but he remained silent as she got her breathing under control, and squeezed her hand as tightly as he could manage in the state he was in to help her.

"Daniel, I, I'm so sorry," she said when she regained her composure.

She pulled her head from the bed and looked him in the eye, her expression incredulous.

He shook his head and squeezed her hand gently.

"What do you have to be sorry about?" He asked with a smile, "you saved my life."

Her mood didn't seem to improve, and she cast her eyes downward once again.

"It's not that, Daniel," she said before her voice caught in her throat, "I love you."

Daniel's heart nearly stopped as those simple words came out of her mouth.

He had never imagined he would hear them out of her. He had hoped, he had wished, but something had always told him there was no way she could feel that way about him. For a moment he couldn't speak, and could hardly think about anything else, but when Daniel failed to respond to her after a moment she nervously let go of his hand.

"I'm so sorry," she said quietly, her eyes downcast, "I shouldn't be telling you this now. I don't want to make things awkward."

Before she could move any farther, however, he caught her hand and pulled it to his lips, kissing it gently and letting his actions speak for him. He wasn't about to let his friend feel pained any longer.

Hope shot through her eyes when she felt his lips meet her hand, and she looked at him with longing.

"I love you too Emily," she said, a smile on his face, "God does it feel great to say that."

She a tear fell down her face as a smile curled onto her face. She didn't hesitate to wipe it away before leaning in to kiss him.

Their lips met tenderly at first, but neither of them stayed calm for long. Daniel held onto her with all his strength, and pressed his lips to hers intently, needing her healing embrace more than anything right now.

Her strawberry lip gloss hit the metal taste of his mouth like a firework and sent adrenaline pulsing through him.

He pulled her onto the bed and to his side, wrapping his arms around her waist. Every part of him hurt, but the pain numbing feeling of her lips made it bearable.

He knew he couldn't forget the death he had seen today for forever, but more than anything he needed her to trick him into thinking he could. Even a moment of calm in the storm would be life saving for him right now.

When they broke he tucked her head close to his chest and rubbed the back of her head gently, calming her. The thought of just how against regulation this was had drifted from his mind. Fighting for so long had brought him to the point where he could care less.

She placed a tender hand on his cheek, and he leaned into her touch, trapping her hand between his head and the pillow and closing his eyes.

He threaded one of his hands into her silky auburn hair, and for a peaceful moment, they both lay still by each other's side, taking in the feeling of having each other close for the first time. They had both wanted this for so long, and the trust shared between them allowed each of them to relax in a way neither of them had in years.

When their eyes broke open and they looked at each other it was a look of happiness, and there was a mutual smile between them.

"You're going home," she said quietly, a hint of happiness in her voice.

He knew he should have been as happy to go home as she was, but still he visibly tensed at the thought of leaving. If he went home now he would leave his men here without him. Surely there was something he could do, or an administrative position he could take? The most unbearable part of it for him, however, was leaving without her. She would probably have another two or three months down range before pulling out. He knew he'd have trouble sleeping worrying about what would happen to her.

He knew better than to suggest this to Emily, however. She didn't look like she could stand worrying about him dying for a moment longer, and the longer he was here the more that worry would increase.

So he forced a smile and kissed her gently on the cheek, letting her head fold closer to his chest.

"Will you find me when you get home?" He asked hopefully.

She answered his question by sealing his lips with a searing kiss.

He laced his fingers into her hair and held her there, enjoying the feeling of having her close more than anything in the world.

When they broke she relaxed at his side and smiled.

"Always," she said gently.

She stayed by his side for a moment longer, but both of them knew she couldn't stay long. They still had a duty to the UNSC to uphold, and they couldn't let this get in the way, no matter how much they wanted it to.

"I'll miss you," he said softly.

She smiled reassuringly at him and nodded.

"Sure you'll survive without me?" She asked.

Daniel smiled at the return of her sarcasm and closed his eyes, the need to sleep washing over him.

"I'll make it," he said firmly, "but I'd rather have you by my side."

Emily smiled before standing reluctantly and pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. She couldn't be more happy that he had found a place in his heart for her, and she wanted to make sure he knew that.

"Get some rest," she said, "doctor's orders."

Daniel laughed and rolled onto his back, relaxing into the cot.

"Sure you don't want to put me under observation?" He asked with a smile, "you know, to make sure I don't go anywhere?"

Emily rolled her eyes dramatically before spinning and walking away.

"Goodnight, Sergeant Turner," she said formally before turning off the lights.

He laughed softly at the comment before relaxing back onto his cot.

"Goodnight Emily," he replied, eliciting a smile from her that was hidden by the dark.

Emily went about her duties for the rest of the night. Her duty to the UNSC was still paramount, but still, she always remembered to check in on him periodically and make sure he was still comfortable.

The sound of his steady breathing soothed her as he slept. It was a good sound to hear, and one so many no longer had the ability to make after leaving this room. She knew as long as she could hear it he was still alive and with her.

Once or twice when she walked in he was rolling violently, tossing back and forth as terrible dreams raged in his head. She walked over, placed a gentle hand over his, and began to hum to him softly. She didn't hum any tune in particular, but the sound of her voice seemed to be enough to sooth him until he settled down and stopped moving, letting himself rest peacefully once again.

She always ended up staying with him a few moments longer than she intended to. It wasn't enough to put her duty at risk, but still, it was noticeable.

Emily knew he still had a lot of recovering to do, and his physical injuries weren't the end of it, but she had seen hopeless cases saved on the battlefield before, and she was sure he would make it, one way or another.

* * *

 **"And oh without your kisses, I'll be needing stitches."**


End file.
